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Visit Date: 9/07/03
Steps: 22,251
Parks Miles: 10.93
Time in Parks: 14

 
Trip Log:

Arrived early down at the Resort due to no traffic... yeah Sunday morning.. Was stuck parking outside vs the structure, a little easier in and out, but like the cover of the garage. Headed for Disneyland first since it was about 8:15 and DCA did not open till 10, Disneyland did at 9. So I had a half hour or so to listen to the Disneyland band and roam around Mainstreet. At the Rope drop headed through the Castle and to Fantasyland. Went on Peter Pan and Mr. Toad (favorite two dark rides that I rarely get on due to the lines and my attitude toward lines). Then decided to fulfill a request and road Storybook. Decided it was time to head out to Splash to see if any visible signs of the rehab work were there. Instead I ran into a road block. They still had the big gate closed and the Thunder Trail was off limits. So I headed back through the Castle and through Carnation and Rancho Del Zoro or whatever it is. They had all the rehab walls and tarps up on Thunder so you could not see anything. There was about a half dozen CMs dressed in the white Disneyland Polo shirts to field questions and stop guests from going much further than the Mark Twain dock toward Thunder... No McFry cart or views of Thunder till they figure things out. Headed around the Rivers and out to Critter Country, kind of dead without Splash up. Nothing too visible. So headed back though Adventureland and out toward Toontown to see the painting. It was closed of course, doesn't open for a while. Took a long shot and went through Tomorrowland and then back down Main Street and over to DCA. Grabbed a guide and had some time to study it before the park opened at 10am. At Headed down the backlot and to Muppetvision to see if I could get into the Wayne Brady show, no luck so finished the loop, got Tower shots and then around to Bugs for more Tower shots. Down the backlot and out to the Bay area for a couple shots, caught the intros for the Bachelor show, and then into a screening of Hope and Faith. Next up a walk through GRR to meet friends at the front of the park. Headed out to the Pier so some members of the group could grab a fastpass for Screamin'. Then around back to the Backlot for some pictures. Caught the new Dramas with Karen Sisco at 1pm and then waited around for the 8 Simple Rules Q&A. Finally starving headed over to White Water snacks for a late lunch. Back to DCA and Bugsland for some relaxation before the parade. Also grabbed a fastpass to Soarin'. Found a decent spot in the shade for the Parade of the Stars (TV stars in this Park) and then into the Screening room to see Married to the Kellys. After the show it was another trip to the backlot to catch the reality show on the stage (which held my interest for a whopping 2 minutes). Back out to the Wharf and the Bread tour (whole large pieces, WOW) then the Tortilla tour. Grabbed some ice water to wash it all down and caught the Kelly Rae Band on the stage. Next up to get into the Belushi concert, better than last year even. Then to Soarin and Downtown Disney before heading out for the evening.


For Comparisons to other trips or more park miles click here to visit our park Miles Section.

Note: These totals may be skewed because the pedometer is zero'd when we start and then left alone and read when we leave. So attractions, and other things may cause extra "steps" to be counted. The pedometer that we use basically measures up/down motion as a step, so if your standing in line and moving up and down it may be counting steps, etc.. so the total distances traveled and steps may be off.. so use these as rough distance comparisons between trips and they may not be accurate in terms of actual distance traveled.
Pictures & Video From this Trip:


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My Thoughts & Observations:

** After you read this report you may want to check out the pictorial updates in our Disneyland Resort Pictorial Update section

Its always awesome to navigate the LA freeways at the posted speed and not a crawl, so upon arrivial was in a better than average mood. The parking lot tram had a special ABC Primetime weekend announcement. Add to that the 50 signs between the time you pull in and get to the parks and it would be nearly impossible to miss.

We have moved our trip rundowns and mileage reports to our Park Miles section.

Disneyland Items:

  • Did not spend too much time in the park except the first hour of opening, so no way to judge the crowd.

  • I was kind of surprised the entire Thunder Trail is still blocked off, figured they would have the normal rehab walls up and thats about it, since the incident happened in a tunnel anyway.. wonder howlong the blockaide will last, it sure seemed long to get around the park without the walkway open.

  • I did overhear one group of extremely upset guests out by Splash Mountain. Of course they did not read any of the notices about what was closed... and I heard them talking loudly to a CM about how they walked to Tomorrowland and no Space Mountain, then out to Frontierland and no Thunder Mountain and then to hear and no Splash Mountain.. they wanted to know what to ride...

  • The new paint job on Main Street looks great, nice to see it done. Should have been done a while ago, just like Toontown.

DCA Items:

  • Screamin was down sparatically throughout the day it appeared. As timing would have it, it was down during most of the concert.
  • I was a little surprised by the way Soarin' looked. Inside the theater we were in had all sorts of trash, probably a couple dozen pieces down on the screen. I would have thought since the lines were relatively short taking five minutes to clean that up would be good.
  • Good news, most of the fog and geysers at GRR were running, did not see the geysers in the flume on though.
  • Nice to see the line at Aladdin for a change.
  • No site of Lucky the dinosaur..

ABC Weekend Items:

  • A great addition this year was a group (probably a couple dozen) limos of various types and sizes lined up outside DCA. It was a great Red Carpet Experience.
  • This year there seemed to be more Q&A type experiences around the park.
  • I was extremely annoyed at how the Wayne Brady show was handled. It was held in the Muppets theater (which is rather small). They had signs up and information in the guidebooks saying not to miss it. I walked down right at the rope drop (maybe a dozen people ahead of me). Got to theater and they said it was full. We were confused and pestered the CMs. They stated that the tickets were given away weeks ago on the website. That's a great idea I think, but if you do that you should not publisize an event that guests cannot get into.
  • Other changes from last year were the dropping of the ABC sports trophies and sports in general from the program... Also there was on Whose Line
  • I wish they would do more screenings throughout the day, Golden Dreams is small and a couple more does not seem to cost that much more.
  • Speaking of the screenings there was a change this year. They had someone come out to give an introduction to someone who then would introduce the show.
  • One other change is some of the screenings were clips plus a Q&A.
  • It got quite annoying that the introductions for each screening were almost identical and same jokes and all..
  • I thought it would have also been interesting if there could have been more people with dials to judge the show and showing the restuls...
  • The Karen Sisco screening really annoyed me. They cut the 1 hour show down to like 5 minutes worth of highlights. This really did not give a flavor for the show.
  • The Jim Belushi concert was great. Seemed a little longer than last year. He seems to just enjoy himself and its fun to watch.
  • One comment on the crowds, there seemed to be a lot of people around, but we were able to get to everything we wanted with no real problems. I thought the concert crowd was less than last year too.

Be sure to check out the picture update that goes with this Geekspeak column, it can be found in our Disneyland Resort Pictorial Update section

Send comments, questions, any other email to: disneygeek@disneygeek.com
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